Castro foes mark anniversary of shootdown near Cuba

MIAMI (Reuters) - As Cuba picked a new leader on Sunday for the first time in half a century, a Cuban exile group flew to a spot near the Caribbean island where Cuban fighters shot down two of its planes and killed four of its members 12 years ago.

Jose Basulto, 68, who founded Brothers to the Rescue, which flew planes over the Florida Straits looking for rafters and boat people fleeing Cuba, said Cuban air traffic control threatened them but did not intercept their planes.

Three Cuban Americans and a Cuban exile, all companions of Basulto, were killed when Cuban government MiGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes near Cuba on February 24, 1996.

"Fidel Castro and Raul Castro gave the orders and (should be) indicted for murder in the United States," said Basulto, who worked inside Cuba sending intelligence on troop movements by radio to exile forces during the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

Basulto piloted one of the Brothers to the Rescue planes that survived the 1996 shootdown.

He was on one of four small planes, carrying about 10 members of Brothers to the Rescue, that marked Sunday's anniversary by flying from Opa Locka airport outside Miami to the shootdown site known as Martyrs' Point.

One of the planes dropped flowers over the site as a prayer was said for the men who died.

"It is and it always was international waters. It was on February 24, 1996, and it is today," said Basulto. "That's where they were shot down."

Castro, 81, relinquished power temporarily to his brother after stomach surgery in July 2006. He resigned Tuesday and Raul Castro was named the new Cuban president on Sunday.

The resignation prompted U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-born Florida Republican, last week to demand Castro's indictment for the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown.

She said he had relinquished any potential legal immunity.

Legal experts say it is unlikely the ailing revolutionary, who survived not just the Bay of Pigs but repeated assassination attempts, will face charges in a U.S. court.

But Basulto said, "We want an indictment now."

He dismissed the political events in Havana on Sunday as a "rubber-stamp process" and said the regime installed by Castro 49 years ago has kept its stranglehold on power.

"There is actually no change in Cuba taking place," he said. "There's very little focus on the fact that our planes were shot down. We need truth and justice for what happened that day."

(Editing by Michael Christie and Doina Chiacu)